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7 days ago

Painful Reminders (Part I): The Celtics Drafted JaJuan Johnson Instead of Jimmy Butler

On June 23rd, 2011, Brian Robb and I stood around a high top bar table in Tommy Doyle’s in Kendall Square.  Before us lay one of the biggest mounds of buffalo chicken wings I had ever endeavor to make disappear.  These 25 cent flappers- one of the few indulgences afforded to the participants of our [...]

19
7 days ago

Chris Wilcox: 2012-13 Final Grade

There are a number of contextually-appropriate ways to craft this post. One would be to forgo words entirely, and represent Chris Wilcox’s entire season with a series of videos. That would involve one part of this: For every eight parts of this: Note the headline on that second clip. Someone was so amused/enraged by Wilcox’s [...]

12
8 days ago

Rajon Rondo’s 2012-13 Final Grade

Here’s a sweeping general statement involving super specific statistics that may or may not mean anything: In the 1423 minutes Rajon Rondo played this season, the Boston Celtics were outscored by 1.3 points per 100 possessions. When he sat (including all contests after he tore his ACL), Boston was better than their opponents by 1.8 [...]

93
9 days ago

Avery Bradley Elected to NBA All-Defense Second Team

Avery Bradley has been a standout defender for the past couple seasons…in the regular season anyway. Now he has a trophy to prove it. The NBA announced this afternoon that the third-year guard has been elected by coaches around the league to the second-team all-NBA defensive team for the first time in his career. Bradley [...]

13
12 days ago

Paul Pierce’s Contract: Dispelling The Myths and Stating The Facts

The first domino to fall this offseason is Paul Pierce’s contract. Until Danny Ainge figures out what he’s doing there, little else matters. As we wait for this decision, we also must face the rest of the offseason, which means it is also rumor season. With that time of year, comes plenty of information floating [...]

42
12 days ago

Final Grade: Avery Bradley (C+)

In his third year in the league, in which promising players often make brash leaps from benchwarmer to starter, from starter to star, Avery Bradley took a big step back. But his regression might be deceptive. When he returned to the Celtics’ lineup on January the 2nd after two in-season months recovering from offseason shoulder [...]

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Doc’s Whiteboard: The Bradley Decoy


Doc Rivers is the single greatest designer of plays out of timeouts in the history of professional basketball as Brian proved with mathematical certainty in this post from December 2010. Today, we check in on something new in his arsenal from Friday night’s win over Indiana.

Late in the fourth quarter, Doc sent the troops off to execute this little masterpiece, which features that most unstable of Celtics offensive weapons, Avery Bradley.

It’s sort of crazy to use Bradley as a decoy because at this point in his career, it’s hard to believe anyone would deliberately burn a timeout so they could get him a look at the hoop while Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce are on the floor. Bradley’s like a suitcase nuke, more a threat than an actual weapon, but still very capable of obliterating a small city by accident.

But Bradley does a nice job here, first throwing the inbounds pass to Garnett who flashes to the high post as the referee starts his five count, and then getting out of the way.

After KG fakes the handoff and Bradley cuts cross-court, Mickael Pietrus sweeps around the arc to the strong side on a delayed action. Danny Granger chases him, taking the quick route, assuming Pietrus might be popping out to the wing for a three-ball (that may be an option on this play). The problem is that the quick route funnels Granger between Garnett and Pierce, who’s just standing there in the post, knowing all post-Bradley attention is on him. This may be why the clip above shows him grinning like a fiend.

Pierce steps up to set a (sort of) moving pick although he doesn’t really connect with it. It’s no matter though: Pietrus is free and KG finds him curling along the baseline for an easy dunk.

It actually seems like Pietrus could also have pulled up short on his curl and set a pick to release Pierce, but it works just fine as is.

Take a look at the replay. It’s even prettier from this angle.

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